Does Your Pick, Pack, and Ship Process Help or Hinder Your Business?

If your business has inventory then you understand the order fulfillment process of pulling product from your inventory, packaging it, and shipping it to your customers. The process is called Pick, Pack, and Ship – pretty straightforward in both its name and practical application. But how you actually do the process of picking, packing, and shipping can make a big difference in how efficient your business is. The faster you can complete the process, the happier your customers will be, and the bigger you can grow your business as a result.

IT’S LIKE WANDERING THE AISLES AT THE GROCERY STORE

For serious businesses, doing the pick, pack, and ship process without a warehouse management system of some kind would simply be bad business. It is just like when a wife sends her husband to the grocery store to get “a few things” and he comes back an hour later and she wants to know what took him so long. He doesn’t know where everything is at the store so he ends up wandering the aisles over and over trying to find each item on the list. It is an unfortunate waste of time.

A good pick, pack and ship system can tell you exactly where everything is. Great systems will even offer intelligent picking routes that really boost efficiency. To make things even more efficient, imagine going into the warehouse to pick inventory for four of five different customers’ sales orders, and doing it without backtracking or wandering the same aisle multiple times. This is how picking should be done.

But the increases in efficiency don’t end there. Companies lose money when orders are shipped and something was missed or the wrong item was picked. With a good system, each sales order can quickly be double-checked with a barcode scanner to ensure that what is being packaged is exactly what was ordered. And since it is all automated, you can print the shipping label with the click of a button and the package will be ready to go out the door.

A GREAT SOLUTION FOR SMALL AND MEDIUM BUSINESSES

One of the best and most affordable order management solutions for SMBs is Fishbowl. With Fishbowl, you can:

Pick in a single pass route to save time and avoid going back and forth multiple times.

Pick multiple orders at the same time with the help of batch picks.

Use wireless devices to map your route and pick products by their location within the warehouse, right down to the section, aisle, shelf, and bin number.

Go digital and eliminate printed pick tickets by keeping it all on a handheld mobile device.

Reduce human error by allowing warehouse workers to scan items’ barcodes to automatically enter data instead of having to do it by hand.

If you have not optimized your pick, pack and ship process, your business is probably losing money on missed sales, and it may even be experiencing errors in shipping and receiving bad customer experiences. There is a way to solve these problems and keep your business going strong. Find out if Fishbowl is right for you by clicking the link below.